Monday, 21 June 2010

The Club hosted a demo game at Phalanx down in St Helens. A replay of the May Day game, but with all the forces already on the table, which now looked much better with the green flocked GW mats rather than bedsheets.

Was a nice drive down with little traffic or roadworks and managed to get a decent parking space. Think I managed to avoid the speed trap on the road in. Martin was already down St Helens, and Matt and Alan brought their stuff down in the Morning. When I got there it was just about opening time.

Don't know if the Sport Centre where it was hosted has changed the lighting in the hall but there seemed to be a pallour over everything. Can imagine that the painting services stands had a bit of explaining to do, Mark, when browsing a stand, had actaully been told 'no thats not the actual colour' when looking at some 'orange' Redcoats. It did make photography difficult; I normally use Picasa to adjust the colour balance but even that struggled to do much with some of the photos.

The first thing Matt did was buy some Roman Numeral Dice for the heroic Romans to use; while the primitive Celts just got the usual pipped Knuckle Bones. And in certain circumstances the new dice made life easier, as for any 4+ attacks or saves all you had to do was count the appearence of V's.

Got most of my purchases early on. Got the latest Battlegames and some Uncharted Seas Elven Heavy Cruisers. Managed to get a compendium of Traveller boardgame rules in top condition 2nd Hand. I already had some of the rules on pdf, so knew a good portion of its contents. Also got some magnetic bases so that I can convert my Mighty Armies figures to HOTT\DBx standard but not sure I've got enough of them.

Graeme's party turned up a bit later, and didn't stay the whole day. Tony got drafted into playing another demo game.

Alan was in charge of the Celtic relief force, but seemed more interested in rescuing the Slave girls from the Roman camp.

We had a break for lunch with a number heading up to the cafe and its mile long queue. I had a Gingsters, which could best be described as 'interesting'. Had a wander up to the gallery, which is the best vantage point.

Fighting 15s was overlooking our game which was convenient as they are the UKs stockist for Eureka, who not only do 15mm Abyssinians but also 18mm Fantasy which are compatible with Mighty Armies. He didn't have any in stock, but is due to receive a new batch from down-under in a months time.

The war machines of the Romans were slightly less self-destructive than during the trial run, but not by much. With the forces nearing the ramparts, the machines switched from trying to crack the wall, to lobbing into the compound itself. The first shot was bang on target and killed a pig, the second deviated badly and killed the Celtic Commander-in-Chief!

Being sick of wheeling the Battering Ram slowly forward, the Romans instead give up on this and their equally slow Testudos to launch a direct attack over the main gate.

Martin, unswayed by the fact that the tactic failed dramatically last time we played this scenario, once again opened the gates and charged out to face the Legionaries. Things didn't turn out any different and with some good die rolling (16 die, 12 hits, 9 wounds), the Romans finally had their route into the fort.

At this point it was packing up time.

Other Photos of the game and the rest of the con are on the Spartans website.¶